


Hello Dystopia

by RainedMirror



Series: These Melodies We Call Life [12]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Keith (Voltron) Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 03:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14844782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainedMirror/pseuds/RainedMirror
Summary: Keith sits in a cell, and watches as events unfold.





	Hello Dystopia

Keith personally wonders how long he had been in the cell. Granted, he put himself in there, but he doesn't really care whether he did it willing or not. It wasn't fair. To have Kolivan and his mother and his sister all locked up as he, as one of the Defenders of the Universe gets pardon despite being one of them. He fought to be treated exactly the same as all the other Galra that were locked up, and when that didn't happen, he locked himself up. It was only fair, after all. 

Keith mused as he continued pacing around the cell. He is in his Galran form rather than his human form, just to hammer in the point that he is Galran like all the others. Even if he is a Defender of the Universe. 

Voltron was one down, but that was fine, Lance could take over as the Red Paladin and Allura could easily be the Blue Paladin. Shiro, Pidge and Hunk could stay in their positions. 

Thinking about the Atlean Princess gave him a bitter taste in his mouth, despite not having eaten anything. She was why he even undertook this personal trial in the first place. He was livid as they were fighting together, Blade of Mamora and Voltron one moment, and then the moment Zarkon was down, they switched to locking up every single Galra there was, including the Blade, including Lotor who may have fought them at first, but ended up helping them, all except him. He boiled with rage when he found out, demanding he be treated the same as them since he had Galran blood coursing through him, switching to his Galran form, before outright marching into a cell and locking himself up before any of the others could protest. 

He was bitter about it still, even all the times the Galra aided them, the princess still couldn't overcome her biases against the Galra, even after their empire has fallen, and Lotor was ready to make peace with the rest of the universe. He wonders how far she has manipulated everybody. 

He sits still in the cell, ever unwilling to let himself out even though the other Paladins all know he could. 

\-----

He occasionally gets visits. That was no surprise at all, since it was the Paladins making the visits. 

The first was Hunk. 

‘You don't have to do this, you know.’ he said, as the cell door separates them both. ‘You could be free. You are free. You are a Defender of the Universe. You are free.’

‘Repeating that doesn't make it any more true, you know.’ Keith was slightly surprised at the dryness his tone carried, but it was too late to take it back. 

‘You could come out any time you want! Please, just return to us. You are Keith, you are human, you shouldn't be locked up!’ Hunk continued. 

‘But I am also Kylov, I am also Galran, and I should be locked up.’ he returned. ‘The things I did, the things I am shouldn't exempt me from having the same consequences as everyone else.’ There was a matter of factness in his tone that he didn't want to correct. 

Hunk just cried outside his cell before heading back. 

\-----

The next that showed up was Pidge. He couldn't see her, since the cell door covered her, but he could hear her angrily stomping her way towards her cell. 

‘Keith Kogane Akira, you get out of the cell right now!’ she screamed. Keith scoffed at the name she called out. 

‘Sorry, you got the wrong person.’ he responded, with another dry tone that he still didn't correct. 

‘You're responding to me right fucking now! Quit playing games with me!’ she yelled back.

‘You are talking to Kylov the Galran. I am not playing games with you. Also control your language, Shiro will be disappointed.’ he giggled when he got a loud ‘FUCK YOU.’ as a response. 

‘I'll murder you in your bloody sleep!’ she yelled out, somewhere among all the empty threats she was making if he didn't leave his self-imposed cell. 

‘If you did murder me, you'd be down two Paladins.’ he sternly replied, after taking all the other insults in stride. 

‘You took every other insult, but you choose to focus on that one!?’ she exasperatedly screamed. 

‘Well, yes, mostly you would have killed the Red Paladin, and they would probably lock you, the Green Paladin up. And I am not sure if you knew, but Lance’s bond with Red is weaker than my own. Red is working with him on a temporary basis. Killing me would probably break that bond permanently, and you have to find another Red Paladin, which I doubt Red will accept anytime soon.’ he calmly explained. 

‘I can't believe you!’ she fired back as she stomped away from his cell. 

\-----

Third was Lance. He seemed troubled when he approached his cell door, but to be honest, Keith didn't really care what was going on outside his cell and merely just appreciated any visitors he managed to get. 

‘Keith?’ Lance’s voice was small and begging, which was a stark contrast to the usual dynamic the two of them had. The loud boisterous voice was replaced with a meek and begging one. 

‘Lance.’ he addressed. There was not much sympathy in his tone, but then again, he put himself in a cell. 

‘Look, Keith, I really need you to come out of your cell.’ Keith raised an eyebrow at the fact he is literally hearing Lance pleading. 

‘Ever since Pidge visited you, my bond with Red has weakened a lot. I don't know if we could form Voltron like this. Please, come out and pilot Red, I can't do this anymore, Red is refusing me to let me in recently.’

Keith only returned a piercing blank stare to Lance with his glowing yellow eyes. ‘You know what I want. I want the freedom of my people.’

‘Earth is free! The Galran empire has been dismantled! The humans themselves are free! You know this! Please, I beg you, pilot Red, cause I can't anymore...’ Lance slid down the wall, defeated. 

‘Lance.’ Keith’s word got a slight perk up from Lance. ‘You know that is not what I meant.’ Hearing that, Lance seemed to have faltered again. ‘I am every bit Galran as I am human. If the Galra can't have freedom, I can't either. After all, we are all made from the same cosmic dust. You laughed back then, but it is true, isn't it?’

Lance trudged away sadly from his cell door, at which point he could only yell out a ‘Sorry.’

\-----

The last to visit was Shiro, which surprised Keith, having expected him first. 

Shiro seemed really depressed when he approached the cell door. But unlike the others, Keith was first to make a small ‘Shiro?’. 

Shiro just stood in front of his cell door and started weeping, which taken Keith slightly aback. He almost opened the cell door before remembering why he was in the cell. As much as he wanted to opened and comfort him, he couldn't. 

After a few minutes of silence as Keith watched Shiro cry in front of his cell door, Shiro started speaking. 

‘I am not here to convince you. I just need a shoulder to cry on, and well, you seemed like the one, since everybody else is in chaos.’ Shiro started. Keith looked on with a softened face, having lost any of his firmness. 

‘Allura couldn't see what she was doing wrong even as Coran tried to convince her otherwise. We don't think the good Galra will be free any time soon so… I am so sorry that you had to do this.’ he continued. 

‘Red had locked Lance out, but Black told me that you didn't do anything with their bond. Pidge locked themselves in Green in frustration and Hunk is trying to get to her with no avail. Voltron is falling apart. And all because you had to devolve to doing this so you could save the good Galra for helping us.’

‘I am so so sorry.’ Shiro repeated over and over, gripping the bars, Keith could only hold his hand in silence as Shiro repeated it over and over until he passed out, at which point he continued holding his hand until he was taken and carried away. 

\-----

There was an attack on the Castle, and the generators shut down at one point. Keith knew as the lights all went red, and Keith could easily hear multiple sets of running. His door opened from the outside, which was unusual. But what was more unusual was that Lotor, Kolivan, Krolia and Acxa were standing in front of him. 

At the point, he knew. They were breaking out of the Castle, and he nodded as he followed them out into an escape pod, and cramming the five of them into one and getting away from the prison that housed them for so long. 

Keith looked back at the Castle with only a tinge of acceptance of what was to come. 

\-----

If there is anything the Blades were good at, it was undercover operations. 

And despite being only five them at the moment, they each themselves gotten undercover really well to plan their next attack to rescue the rest of the Galrans. 

It was then they met the Paladins again. Hunk had a set of denial, Pidge was angered, Lance was pleading, Shiro looked upset and Allura was as stern as ever. 

‘Keith, we don't have to do this…’ Shiro said. 

‘No, we have to do this. You know what we want. We only wanted the freedom of our people.’ Keith replied. ‘I could have done it the easier way or the harder way. You didn't listen.’

‘The Galra cannot be forgiven!’ Allura snarled, as she fired a shot at Keith. A simple flip served to quickly avoid the shot. 

‘The Galra fought with you. The Galra aided you. And I was ready to make peace with the universe and make amends for the mistakes my father did.’ Lotor snarled back. It was a lot more impressive than Allura’s. 

‘The Galra couldn't be trusted! You guys betrayed us the first moment you got!’ Pidge yelled. 

‘The Blades trusted you, and you were first to betray us when Zarkon fell.’ Kolivan shot back. 

‘You broke apart families while Zarkon ruled…’ Hunk softly said. 

‘And you broke apart families when you killed Galran soldiers. You did the same thing as they did. You have no excuse.’ Krolia retorted. 

‘Please think of the innocents. ’ Lance begged. 

‘You locked up innocents too.’ Acxa finished. ‘Enough talk. Let's do battle. And don't even think about forming Voltron. I would remind you that your dear Red Paladin is on our side and your Red Lion is AWOL.’

The five looked at the other five head on, before clashing. 

\-----

Voltron would eventually learn why the Blades were not to be trifled with. 

For one thing, they weren't that noticeable during their takedown of Zarkon, but since they are now the ones getting it, they soon learnt that they have a really absurdly high success rate. As in a 99.99% success rate. Even their failures had some sort of thing going for them.

And Allura was finding this the most irritating thing since Voltron could not be formed with the traitorous half-Galran, which the lions seemed to actually support surprisingly. The lions are tied to her! Why are they not listening? 

In any case, it is not like they could stop fighting. The Blades were clear in their goal of setting their people free, but they amazingly never harmed a single innocent at the same time. With each Galran set free by them, the more the pressure was pushed on her. And eventually, every single one of them was set free. 

Allura was hell bent getting them locked up once again.

\-----

Shiro received a private message from Keith saying the Galra would never bother them again. Allura has turned to be like Zarkon in her quest for revenge, but the Galra would all disappear like they never existed and even cautioned him not to search for him. 

Shiro could only weep again for losing his brother. 

\-----

Lance was surprised to find Red accepting him once again, and even more surprised to find he couldn't feel Keith anymore.

The bond was welcoming and warm, but Lance felt cold. 

\-----

Hunk just quietly accepted the disappearance of Keith, even though the Castle has gotten more quiet without him. 

\-----

Pidge desperately scanned planets under the princess's orders. She soon came to accept all the null readings to mean the Galra really had disappeared. 

\-----

And in a small faraway planet, Lotor, Kolivan, Krolia, Kylov and Acxa sets up a new government for the Galrans, all while hiding away from Voltron’s eyes. Life was hard, but they adapted and survived. 

It was better than the two bouts of dystopia that the citizens faced. And Keith doesn't regret that day when he walked into the cell on his own volition.

**Author's Note:**

> Back to angst.


End file.
